Search results

By replacing traditional fossil fuels, renewable energy (RE) has the potential to become an outstanding sustainable energy supply. However, owing to technological, economic, social and legal constraints, RE is still in its early stages of development. Hence, this paper aims to analyze the sustainable development hindrances in the RE supply chain (RESC).

Twenty-three hindrances to the sustainable development of the RE industry were investigated in this research, which included a review of the expert opinion and literature. Then, a mutual relationship between the hindrances by integrating interpretive structural modeling and decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory in fuzzy environment was established. Furthermore, using the cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to a classification analysis, these hindrances were grouped.

The findings show that the important hindrances are “lack of standards for the RESC (H19), lack of entrepreneurship support (H21), lack of incentives/subsidies to encourage RE producers to compete (H30) and lack of governmental support for sustainable supply chain solutions (H31).

This research provides unique insights into the area of sustainability in RESC. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to analyze the sustainability hindrances in the RESC.

This study aims to explore: first, the formation of the customer value of high‐tech consumer products through application of intrinsic and extrinsic cues of product quality; and second, the effect of the mental price category of the product on the construction of customer value.

The study was conducted in the Finnish consumer market in 2008. In total, 453 completed interview forms were collected through the structured interview method. The factor model was constructed through explorative factor analysis and hypothesis testing was conducted through linear multiple‐regression analysis.

The high‐tech product's price category was found to have a significant effect on the construction of the customer value. The mental price category in which consumers located the product was found to dictate how the perceived value was constructed through the intrinsic and extrinsic dimensions of product quality. The customer value of high‐tech consumer products was composed of visual appeal, excellence, and price satisfaction. Intrinsic cues of product quality were emphasised.

The study provides new insights into how the formation of customer value is dictated by the mental price category perceived by consumers. Also, new information on how intrinsic and extrinsic cues of product quality affect the customer value of high‐tech consumer products was provided.

This study applies and extends goal concepts by exploring the roles of goal intention and implementation planning in explaining how consumers minimize food waste (FW). It consists of impulsiveness in a food domain and food waste-related habit strength as obstacles in this motivational process.

Survey data from 399 Vietnamese consumers and structural equation modeling are used to test the proposed model.

The results establish a causal mechanism from goal intention to food waste reduction behavior via implementation planning. It also highlights mechanisms in which impulsiveness leads to a weak goal intention and careless implementation planning, consolidates FW-related habit strength and makes consumers fail to achieve food waste reduction (FWR) goals.

Future studies would benefit by investigating FWR behavior in different contexts based on the theory of trying or model of goal-directed behavior with the other traits, such as self-esteem or environmental values.

Businesses should design smaller eating portions to limit consumer impulsiveness in buying food. Food policymakers should educate consumers to form and maintain implementation planning, provide them with useful tools to deal with food habits or stimulate ethical motives to reduce FW.

This study extends goal concepts by exploring different routes, highlighting the competing roles of impulsiveness and habit strength compared with goal intention on FWR behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to address two fundamental issues in indirect tax design. It first revisits the case for reduced rates on items especially important to the poor, and then explores the welfare costs from cascading taxes.

Applied theory was used in this paper.

On the first issue, the paper establishes conditions under which even very crudely targeted spending measures better serve the interests of the poor than does the reduced taxation of particular commodities looming large in their consumption. On the second, it shows that these may actually be lower the wider the set of inputs that are taxed but, more to the point, may plausibly be large even at a low nominal tax rate and with relatively few stages of production: contrary to a common mantra, “a low rate on a broad base” is not always good policy.

Both issues addressed in the paper are recurrent and central concerns in the design of indirect taxes in general, and the value-added tax (VAT)/general sales tax (GST) in particular. The author is unaware of other treatments that are at all comparable in perspective or results. The author hopes the analysis will prove useful in many contexts where these issues arise – not least in India, where these issues are central to discussions of VAT/GST reform.

Digital-only banks are emerging as challenger banks to the traditional-bank business model in South Africa. However, traditional-bank customers could resist the use of digital-only banks, theoretically due to their satisfaction with the status quo. Consequently, inertia arising from bias to traditional banks based on status quo satisfaction could engender their resistance to become customers of digital-only banks. The objective of the study, therefore, is to investigate how traditional-bank customers' inertia influences digital-only bank resistance.

Based on a literature review, digital-only bank adoption barriers and cognitive-based initial distrusting beliefs were identified as mediators of the influence of inertia on digital-only bank resistance. To test the mediation model empirically, data was collected from 610 traditional-bank-only customers.

The five adoption barriers fully mediate the influence of inertia on cognitive-based initial distrusting beliefs. The five barriers in serial with cognitive-based initial distrusting beliefs partially mediate the influence of traditional-bank customers' inertia on digital-only bank resistance. Cognitive-based initial distrusting belief is an essential factor in the mechanism underlying the influence of traditional-bank customers' inertia on digital-only bank resistance.

Digital-only banks are relatively new. Research is therefore lacking in consumer behavior explaining the use of digital-only banks by traditional-bank customers in the South African context. A further novelty of the study is the empirical assessment of mechanisms that explain the influence of inertia on cognitive-based initial distrusting beliefs, and the influence of inertia on resistance behavior.

In an attempt to reduce tax distortions and increase economic efficiency, in 2002 and 2003 Brazil promoted changes in the PIS/COFINS tax, the main federal tax on consumption. Thus, in addition to the old cumulative regime calculated on company revenues, the noncumulative regime was created with higher rates and the added value as a tax basis.

This paper analyzes the effects of the PIS/COFINS reform in a context of deindustrialization in the Brazilian economy, using a neoclassical model with two sectors.

The results suggest that after a small improvement in the aggregate economy in the short term, in the long term there was a worsening of the macroeconomic indicators. From the sector perspective, the PIS/COFINS reform may have contributed to the loss of industry participation in the Brazilian economy.

The study of the impact of the PIS/COFINS reform on industry through a neoclassical model is unprecedented in the national literature and contributes to the investigation of changes in the tax regime that occurred in the country.

Under the pressure of environment degradation and energy consumption rises, solar photovoltaic power generation (SPPG) has been seen as a strategic emerging industry in China. However, the SPPG projects have many uncertain factors in the process of the life cycle. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the investment risk comprehensively.

Specifically, this paper firstly identified the risk factors and consequences of SPPG project investment and constructed the investment risk factor evaluation index system. Secondly, the factor analysis method was used to reveal the key investment risk factors and risk consequences. Then, the research hypotheses and conceptual model were proposed, and the empirical analysis was conducted based on the structural equation model (SEM).

The results showed that the six key risk factors (political, economic, technological, management, market and natural) have a significant impact on the risks during the whole period. The influence degree of risk factors in the operational period is such that market factor > political factor > economic factor > management factor > natural factor > technical factor. In addition, the risk of constructional period has a significant impact during the risk of operational period. Except for natural factors, all risk factors are correlated among the mutual influence relationship of risk factors. Finally, this paper puts forward management implications based on the above conclusions: effectively identify investment risk factors and comprehensively improve risk management ability; (refine the risk factors of SPPG project investment and develop targeted risk prevention and control strategies; define risk management objectives and make relevant strategic plans.

Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalisability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further.

It can also help stakeholders propose risk prevention strategies throughout the entire process, to promote the sustainable development of SPPG projects.

This study focuses on the investment risk of SPPG projects, by building an evaluation index system to identify key risk factors, and then establishes a SEM covering constructional period risks and operational period risks to better explore SPPG project risks, in an effort to reveal the mutual influence relationship and influence path of investment risk factors of the projects.

Hydraulic excavator cycle time and associated unit costs of excavation for given input estimating data, for machines operating in the UK construction industry, are predicted. Using multiple regression analysis, three variables are identified as accurate predictors of cycle time: machine weight, digging depth and machine swing angle. With a coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.88, a mean percentage error (MPE) of −5.49, and a mean absolute error (MAPE) of 3.67, the cycle time model is robust; this is further validated using chi‐square analysis and Pearson's correlation coefficient (on predicted and actual values of machine cycle time). An illustrative example of the model's application to determine machine productivity is given. The paper concludes with a spreadsheet model for calculating excavation costs (m3 and cost per h) which is able to deal with any combination of the three independent cycle time predictor variables and other estimator's input data.

This paper aims to determine factors that influence people living with HIV (PLHIV) to engage in internet-based HIV information seeking behaviour in selected Tanzanian public regional hospitals.

The authors conducted a questionnaire-based survey to 221 PLHIV in two regional public hospitals in Mwanza and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. They assessed the validity and reliability of the measurement model by using exploratory factor analysis and also used hierarchical regressions to examine the research hypotheses by using Statistical Package for Social Science.

The study found that there is low usage of internet (24.3 per cent) to search online HIV information. Factors related to attitude and information source accessibility predicted usage intentions of internet, while facilitating conditions, information source accessibility and usage intention of internet determined actual use of internet among PLHIV. Age moderated the effects of information source quality and social influence on usage intention of internet, and the effects of the information source accessibility and social influence on actual use of internet. The findings imply that younger PLHIV were more likely to use internet to access HIV information than the older respondents due to perceived ease of accessing information and quality of the online content. Further, older PLHIV were more influenced by the views of others when making decisions to use internet.

Health-care providers and libraries need to conduct regular studies on health needs of patients, and promote benefits of accessing online information; website designers need to design user-friendly databases; public libraries need to include a section on health information; hospital and public librarians need to provide catalogues of health information resources on their websites; and health-care providers need to improve technological infrastructure.

This is a comprehensive study that provides empirical findings to better understand the HIV information seeking behaviour from actual internet users, particularly factors that may influence PLHIV to seek online information in Tanzania.

Recent studies on commuter parking in an age of fully autonomous vehicles (FAVs) suggest, that the number of parking spaces close to the workplace demanded by commuters will decline because of the capability of FAVs to return home, to seek out (free) parking elsewhere or just cruise. This would be good news because, as of today, parking is one of the largest consumers of urban land and is associated with substantial costs to society. None of the studies, however, is concerned with the special case of employer-provided parking, although workplace parking is a widespread phenomenon and, in many instances, the dominant form of commuter parking. The purpose of this paper is to analyze whether commuter parking will decline with the advent of self-driving cars when parking is provided by the employer.

This study looks at commuter parking from the perspective of both the employer and the employee because in the case of employer-provided parking, the firm’s decision to offer a parking space and the incentive of employees to accept that offer are closely interrelated because of the fringe benefit character of workplace parking. This study develops an economic equilibrium model that explicitly maps the employer–employee relationship, considering the treatment of parking provision and parking policy in the income tax code and accounting for adverse effects from commuting, parking and public transit. This study determines the market level of employer-provided parking in the absence and presence of FAVs and identifies the factors that drive the difference. This study then approximates the magnitude of each factor, relying on recent (first) empirical evidence on the impacts of FAVs.

This paper’s analysis suggests that as long as distortive (tax) policy favors employer-provided parking, FAVs are no guarantee to end up with less commuter parking.

This study’s findings imply that in a world of self-driving cars, policy intervention related to work commuting (e.g. fringe benefit taxation or transport pricing) might be even more warranted than today.